{"id":179780,"date":"2017-10-27T19:34:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-28T00:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/10\/27\/i-demand-to-see-the-original-birth-certificate\/"},"modified":"2017-10-27T19:34:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-28T00:34:00","slug":"i-demand-to-see-the-original-birth-certificate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/10\/27\/i-demand-to-see-the-original-birth-certificate\/","title":{"rendered":"I Demand to See the Original Birth Certificate!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian politics has been thrown into disarray after 5 MPs were ruled ineligible to serve for holding dual citizenship<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Australian deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, and four senators have been ruled ineligible to sit in parliament by the high court, with only the National party\u2019s Matt Canavan and NXT\u2019s Nick Xenophon surviving a challenge that has hung over seven parliamentarians since their dual citizenship was discovered in July<\/a> and August.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s unanimous decision to uphold a strict reading of the constitutional disqualification of foreign citizens will trigger a byelection in the New South Wales seat of New England, won comfortably by Joyce, the National party leader, at the 2016 election<\/a>. The court\u2019s ruling also forced the deputy National party leader, Fiona Nash, and One Nation\u2019s Malcolm Roberts out of the Senate. Two Greens senators, Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters, who had already resigned, were confirmed as ineligible by the court. <\/p>\n

Joyce\u2019s exit strips Malcolm Turnbull\u2019s government of its one-seat majority in the House of Representatives for now, but he could return through a byelection on 2 December.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

In a joint decision the justices rejected the commonwealth\u2019s argument that MPs or senators would need to have knowledge<\/a> of their dual citizenship in order to be disqualified. <\/p>\n

Speaking after the decision, Joyce, who was born in Australia but held New Zealand citizenship by descent from his father, said he had \u201cno reason to believe that … I was a citizen of any other country than Australia\u201d. <\/p>\n

Joyce said the decision was \u201ctough\u201d but he was not \u201ctotally surprised\u201d by it. He said he would not \u201ccry into his beer\u201d but rather prepare for the byelection in New England. <\/p>\n

The Labor opposition rounded on the government, with its leader, Bill Shorten, claiming Australia now has \u201ca minority government\u201d:
<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
Joyce broke the law and as a result, we now have a minority government. Turnbull should’ve stood him aside, terrible judgement once again.<\/span><\/div>\n

\u2014 Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) October 27, 2017<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is the silly season down under as well, it appears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian politics has been thrown into disarray after 5 MPs were ruled ineligible to serve for holding dual citizenship: The Australian deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, and four senators have been ruled ineligible to sit in parliament by the high court, with only the National party\u2019s Matt Canavan and NXT\u2019s Nick Xenophon surviving a challenge …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[474,407,374,421],"class_list":["post-179780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-justice","tag-politics","tag-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}